


Grunt Work

by experiment



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: even if it's just leg work, grunt work!, taylor finds that working for villains is actually pretty profitable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-05-16 16:45:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/experiment/pseuds/experiment
Summary: Taylor gets a summer job after Freshman year. The bills have been piling up, and, well, there isn't exactly a surplus of legitimate jobs in the Bay... she's now Uber and Leet's grunt number four. At least the pay's good?





	1. pizza run- part one

“Look. Dad. Just think of it as a high paying summer job, ok?”

 

I stood up with a grunt, holding the phone awkwardly between my shoulder and head. The cardboard box I had just picked up held quite a lot of wires. Alright… remember to bend my knees, check. Didn’t want to throw out my back, after all. 

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know Dad, but Uber and Leet aren’t so bad in the scale of things. Really, all I’ve been doing is moving boxes so far. The pay’s a plus, too.”

 

I started walking through the halls to the other side the building. Leet’s workshop was on the opposite side from the storage area, which was a bit of a pain, but I guess it kept things from exploding. Or something? Look, I’m just a high school student. I’m not too sure. What Leet needed a giant box of wires for, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t about to ask. 

 

Without looking down, I nudged a pizza box to the side of the hallway with my foot. There were quite a lot of flies feasting on the days old remains in there. 

 

“See you in a bit, Dad. Love you.” 

 

I stopped before an unassuming brown door with a silver keypad. I knocked three times with my elbow before the door buzzed open, and I set the heavy box down on the nearest table with a sense of relief. Clicking my phone shut and stuffing it into my pocket, I sent a salute to Leet, who had immediately descended upon the box and was… muttering something to himself? Whatever. Tinkers. As long as nothing malfunctioned while I was in here, I was good. 

 

“What’s next, boss?”

 

My voice seemed to jolt Leet out of his tinker-induced state. He glanced distractedly up at me. 

“Grunt number four, you’re still here?” He descended into muttering again. I waited patiently-or at least outwardly patiently, as I directed my thoughts to all of the bugs in the building.

 

Eventually, I had to ask “Sir?”

 

“Go do… something. Ask Uber.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

I made my way out, and the door clicked shut behind me. My shoes sounded loud against the metal floor of the hallway, and I sighed at the reminder. As one of the female Grunts (well, only female grunt; all the rest had quit within the first week), I had to wear a costume with- unfortunately- heels. They weren’t all that high, but still. I sighed again. At least I got a costume and pay out of the deal. And besides, I thought humorously, I got more experience wearing heels in odd situations than Emma likely ever will. I can seriously rock these shoes after the amount of running away from authorities I’ve done in them. 

 

Surprisingly, Uber and Leet’s base was very generic- at least in the hallways. The main rooms were a different story, of course, but as I spent most of my time here in the halls or sorting stuff in the storage rooms, the blandness was what stood out to me the most. 

 

This was most definitely not what I had picturered when I had thought about what I would be doing with my summer before Sophomore year. Honestly, I wasn’t too sure about what I would’ve been doing, but then Dad had his salary cut, the bills started piling up, and, well, there wasn’t exactly a surplus of legitimate jobs in Brockton Bay. 

 

And so here I was. Grunt number four, working for Uber and Leet, while hiding my recently acquired power to control bugs. For Emma and her clique, the last day before summer vacation had apparently been a great day for traumatizing other girls. For me, it had been a great day to get bug powers.

 

This job honestly wasn’t so bad. Some of the other fellow grunts knew my Dad since they had been part of the union, and I had started running in the mornings when summer started, so I had some muscle now. That muscle helped a lot when I was lifting those boxes of wires and spare parts. 

 

It was also high paying, probably in response to the spots of danger we grunts encountered now and then. That danger was exacerbated by the necessity of handling Leet’s malfunctioned devices- I had gotten sucked into a gaming sim about two weeks in. We also got matching masks, so our identities weren’t shown to the world when we had to take part in the broadcasts. The main show was supposed to be Uber and Leet, after all. 

 

I stopped in front of yet another brown door with a keypad. This time I knocked two times, and then thrice. 

 

The door opened and I saluted. “Reporting for assignment, boss.”

 

Uber look distinctly sleep-rumpled. His hair was sticking up, and he blinked dazedly. Looks like I woke him up. Whoops.

 

“Ah…” he said groggily. “Give me a sec. Ok. Go on and bring back some pizza. Cheese.”

 

He thrust a wad of ones in my hand that I hadn’t noticed him getting out, and closed the door. I blinked. Well then. I guess I’m getting cheese pizza.

 

As I walked down the hallway to the exit, I thought of something and sighed. Yet again. Today seemed to be a day for sighs. It was protocol for all Grunts going out the base on missions to keep their outfits on. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with advertising. 

 

But this protocol meant that I had to venture out alone, in my costume, in the evening. I checked the spreadsheet next to the exit- according to Leet’s calculations relating parahuman meetings with Pokemon encounters, this combination practically guaranteed a cape encounter. 78.31% chance it’s a hero, 20.33% it’s a villain, and 1.36% it’s a rogue. 

 

Well.

 

I guess I wasn’t talking about this part of my day to my Dad. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up on the internet or PHO embarrassing myself when I fought, but the hope I held out for that was miniscule. 

 

As I tucked the one dollar bills into the pocket of the black pants with electric blue stripes on the side, I adjusted my white mask, and finally entered the codes to open the exit door. There was some Tinker bullshit involved in keeping the entrances and exits unnoticeable, so it doesn't matter if anyone-or anything- saw me. 

 

Time to venture into the world. I had a quest, and my pay was on the line. I solemnly swore to myself that I would not fail my sacred duty: to acquire cheese pizza. A huff of laughter escaped my mask as I stepped into the back alley. Apparently, some of the dramatics of the duo had rubbed off on me. 


	2. pizza run- part two

The people in the pizza place all stare at me as I practically dance out the door, still holding onto five large pizza boxes. No encounters on the way home or in the shop! I was grinning wildly under my mask as I made my way down the rapidly darkening street. This wasn’t a high traffic area, and my mask was semi-obscured by all the pizza boxes, so no one would notice me and think I was about to commit a heinous crime! I conveniently ignored the large Uber and Leet logo on the back of my costume. Yup, nothing would ruin my mood right now!

“Halt, evildoer!”

Annnd I sighed as I continued on. Of course. I jinxed it. 

“You! With the pizza boxes!”

I sighed again as I turned around and saw Glory Girl glaring at my mask. She was floating at about… third-floor level, fifteen feet away from me. Why was she even here, in this low traffic street, right now? Whatever. Gripe later. Plan now.

“Put your hands behind your head and your knees on the ground!”

I awkwardly motioned with my hands, because that was me, awkward, before I realized I could speak.

“Look, I’m just going to put these boxes on the sidewalk next to me. Then hands behind my head, ok?”

I slowly crouched down and placed them to the side, keeping my hands fully visible. Couldn’t let them be squished in the ensuing fight, after all. 

As I did so, my mind was whirling around, trying to think of a plan. Plan. Plan. Right, that’s a thing that I need, but I was coming up dry. 

“Hands on your head, now!”

I complied. As I did so, I felt the pins holding my hair in place beneath my hands, and a smile curled up behind my mask. I knew they wouldn’t do jack against her, but they would get ol’ GG pissed off. Anger is supposed to cloud the mind, right?

“Good. Drop your knees to the ground!”

Instead, I threw the relatively sharp pins and ran directly at her. She was, as usual for my luck, expecting that, and as she started flying fast towards me, and my world started to slow down. I knew there was no way for me to dodge her fist, and I couldn’t risk using my bugs unless it was an emergency- I felt my heel slide on something slimy. Shit. I slipped and fell- which brought me conveniently below her punch. I could feel the whoosh of air right above my head. That was… close, but I couldn’t afford to think anymore. 

Gee Gee was turning around, and she looked pissed. Good. But also shit, because she was angry now. 

My phone started ringing, and my Dad would be asking questions if I ignored it now. Double shit. 

I took my phone out of my pocket and clicked it open a moment before Glory came flying at me again. I started running towards the side of the nearest building. 

“Hey, Dad!”

I chanced a look behind me. Apparently Gee Gee- Maybe I’ll call her that out loud? Was gaining on me as I got ready to jump. I dug my hand into my pocket for that taser. Where was it, where was it… there!

“Yeah, Dad. I know.”

I jumped off the wall to land on Gee Gee’s back- wow, didn’t know I could do that, thanks bugs for presenting a target- and rammed my taser into her neck before activating it. I jumped off rather hastily. She crashed into the wall, and I winced at the debris and noise.

“That noise? No, Dad, I’m not doing anything dangerous. That’s just… one of his devices exploding on the other side of the building. Yes, Dad, I’m sure. It’s been a pretty average day.”

I dusted off my costume, checking to see if either of my heels had broken, and walked back over to pizza boxes. 

“Yeah, Dad, Chinese sounds great. See you soon.”

I clicked my phone shut and picked up the pizzas again. TIme to head back. At least my shoes didn’t break from that slip, and no injuries! Taylor: 1. Glory Girl: ½ for trying. 

\---

The doors closed with a loud bang behind me, making me jump a little. I always hated coming into this entrance, but it was the closest, and I really didn’t want another random encounter. I set the pizza boxes down and penciled in my time back in on the clipboard; who needs Tinker tech when you can have lead and paper?

“I see you got sent on the pizza run, then?”

I flashed a smile that couldn’t be seen to Danny. No, not my father Danny, but my fellow grunt; he was one of the ones that had quit the Union and joined up with Uber and Leet when his money troubles became too much.

“Yeah. Not too much trouble. I did have an encounter with Glory, though.”

He winced. 

“No injuries?”

“Nope. Well, I don’t have any. Panacea’ll handle Glory Girl’s soon enough. Now, I gotta get this to the boss.”

He shook his head for some reason before telling me to get going. He continued his own work, sorting through various paper things and keeping an eye on the door. 

I knocked on Uber’s door once more; back to where I started. It hissed open. 

“Here you go, boss. Cheese pizza, just as ordered.”

An inarticulate mumble. I eyed his muscles appreciatively as he grabbed the pizza boxes. Mmm… No! Bad Taylor!

“By the way, I ran into Glory Girl on the way back. Just wanted to let you know.”

I handed him the leftover cash. He still didn’t seem fully awake.

“If it’s alright, boss, I think I might head home for the night.”

He mumbled an affirmative and closed the door. I let a smile grow under my mask as I thought about the take out and shower that waited for me when I got home. As well as the opportunity to take off these heels; my feet were killing me.


	3. Things Get Wavy- Part One

My eyes stayed level with the wall as we all- the Grunts- shifted uncomfortably. We’ve been standing in the same position for over an hour now. My feet were killing me. Far worse, however, was the oppressive silence only broken by the shifting of clothing and the sound of breathing. 

I had no idea what was going on, and I was pretty sure nobody else did either. About an hour ago (I think) Leet had announced through the intercom that all Grunts had to go into the war room. Neither of the duo in charge had shown up yet. As Grunts, we were accustomed to odd requests, but this… This was stranger than usual. Normally, at least one was left to watch at each of the entrances, but Ken and Danny had been pulled off of their shifts with all the rest of us. 

For the first twenty minutes, most of us were still, fixed into a parade rest, staring straight ahead. The war room itself lent itself to a military-esque feel that inspired our continued attention. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of metal; I wasn’t quite sure what kind, but it looked suitably impressive. Maybe it was plated? I didn’t really know if you could make a room solely out of metal or not. 

Knowing Leet, the walls probably were solid metal. 

But all of that shininess sort of grew insignificant after an hour of waiting- even after the first twenty minutes, we started shifting around a bit and exchanging weirded out expressions with each other. 

I itched to lean down to adjust my heels, but no! I would not give into the temptation! No matter how relieving it would be… 

Just… hold out for another who knows how many minutes…

My feet are killing me I’ve gotta do it. 

As I leaned down quickly- very quickly- I noticed that I was not the only to have broken out of parade rest. I mean, come on. We’re Grunts, not soldiers. It's been an hour. 

I heard the door open. Shit. Straighten up straighten up shit. 

I fell back into parade rest hastily with the other Grunts just as Uber stepped through the door. Leet follows right behind him, but I’m more focused on the huge stack of papers and folded up… things in Uber’s arms. A computer is precariously balanced on top. That arrangement can’t possibly be safe. 

Somehow, Uber makes it all the way to the table in the very front of the room. He starts pinning up… diagrams? Blueprints. I think they look sort of like a boat, maybe? If a boat had turrets... or what looks like a forcefield boundary. 

That's the Rig. You know, that repurposed oil rig right in the middle of the Bay. That one that serves as a base for the Protectorate. 

Oh. Shit.

What the hell am I going to tell Dad?

\-----

“Alright, Grunts! It’s time… for a heist!” Man, Leet seems awake today. “This time, we’re going bolder. Bigger. Nothing like this city has ever seen before.”

Uber chimes in. He's stopped hanging pages up, and is pacing behind the table. “That’s right. For this blockbuster, we’re hitting the Rig. Leet… well, he needs some more things to play with, and luckily for us, we have two other well supplied Tinkers in this city!”

This… what the fuck. What the fuck? How… how is the Protectorate not going to enact a swift and brutal vengeance upon us for this? Armsmaster is friends with Dragon, for god's sake; the response will be on us in minutes, if not seconds.

And more importantly… what, exactly, is Leet trying to build that requires such high-quality materials? What could be worth such a high risk?

I tune back into the two’s motivational speech.

“We’re going to need all hands on deck for this one. If you don’t want to take part? Too bad. If you don’t like it? You can quit.”

I can hear some shifting of clothing at that announcement. None of us can exactly afford to get out of this job right now. 

Damn. My feet are hurting again. Stupid heels. 

“The theme for this heist?” Uber slams his hands onto the table unexpectedly. His eyes are sparkling with enthusiasm. A wild grin is covering half his face. 

“We’re playing Battleship.”

...Wasn’t that a board game?


	4. Things Get Wavy- Part Two

I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a tired sigh after closing the stall door behind me. I was changing for the heist in the bathroom because, quite frankly, no matter how many years some might have worked for my father or how much venom I could pump into their veins at any given moment, I was not comfortable changing in front of middle-aged men.

But I was distracting myself from my situation. Why was I doing this? Before, it had all mostly been- well, milk runs. Help out with the props on the heists. Serve as an extra. Carry boxes around the base. Maybe it went bad sometimes- like that pizza run that had gone sideways when GG showed up- but that wasn’t the same as knowingly going to the hero’s headquarters and swiping their stuff. I had wanted to be a hero as a kid, for god’s sake.

The urge to throw my hands in the air and be done with it all was almost overwhelming. To just walk out the door, right now, and quit. The key word there was almost. Sure. I could quit. But there was no guarantee of finding a paying job with a salary like this one with the job market like it was. Odds were, Dad and I would lose the house by November, and we would be in a worse state than right now. My father worried about me right now, with this- up till now- relatively safe job. I couldn’t do that to him, not when I had the power to stop it.

And that meant I had to go through with this. I blew my breath out in a gust and started strapping the stupid heels on. The only way out of this mess was through. Knowing my shit luck, and the handy encounter chart hung next to the exit, the only way out was probably going to be through something or someone else. I wasn’t fine with that. I couldn’t be. But just because I wasn’t fine with it didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. And besides- I tried to think on the bright side- I got to get an inside look at the Protectorate base and interact with the heroes, just like I’d always wanted.

Yeah, that brightside didn’t cheer me up at all. Time to get moving.

\----------

This, I think as I climb up the side of the rig with sticky gloves, was not what I imagined I’d be doing this summer. Right now, I honestly feel like something out of a mission impossible movie. Uber and Leet's plan for this heist relied entirely on the fact that the good guys had no idea how many Grunts there were in total, and also that they had no idea where any of us were.

Leet had brought out the big guns for this heist. We were outfitted with bugs that provided a type of cloaking tech; it wouldn’t be fair for the Protectorate to cheat at Battleship using their sensors, after all.

I pressed my body to the side of the ship, feeling the cold metal on my front and the occasional wash of sea spray touching my neck and face and focused in on my bugs. They were, in this case, exceptionally useful in telling where Protectorate personnel were in the ship.

I breathed in, out. The sound of waves hitting the metal sides fills my ears, and I continue my climb.

\-------

I froze. Voices were coming around the corner, and my bugs sensed more people than the voices indicated. There wasn’t a door or alcove nearby to duck into, and- I eyed my sticky gloves and boots. I looked up at the high ceiling. God, I hoped this worked.

The spider-pig song started playing in my head as I crept upside down along the ceiling. I’ve had to stifle a number of unwise giggles so far as the large group of uniformed people walked right underneath me, passing me by unaware. The flys on the staffs’ backs confirmed my auditory and visual input- they had moved on. I began to move again, this time across the ceiling, not the floor. My core muscles were getting quite the workout today.

1,568 bugs in my range. Looked like the Protectorate kept a clean ship. A fork in the hallway was coming up. I stopped for a moment and unstuck my feet, and then my hands, and dropped down in a crouch to the floor. Where they promptly got stuck to the floor when I tried to stand up. Man, just when I tried to be cool… I grumbled under my breath as I slowly made my way down to the right side of the fork to the sole doorway in the hall.

Armsmaster and Kid Win’s workshops were on entirely different sides of the ship; it made sense, I supposed, as interactions between unfinished tinkertech could sometimes go really, really badly. Explosions thirty feet wide, potentially break the space-time continuum bad. So. I, as Grunt #4, was targeting Armsmaster's workshop while Ken was targeting Kid Win’s, and another who I don’t know so well was going after the storage room.

I stood in front of the metal door with what looked like… one of those fancy eye scanner things you sometimes see in spy movies? And a handprint scanner. I grimly snapped another set of gloves on, after pressing a button on my original ones. One bug- a daddy long legs- was behind the door. From what I could see, the room was empty.

I got out my spray can of acid from my backpack. Took a breath and let it out. At this rate, I could probably make a buck off of book for meditation techniques. I shook the can and hoped it didn’t explode when I sprayed. Leet had made the chemical, but the can was just a regular old spray paint can we- as grunts- had emptied out.

The door made an odd kerchunk noise when I kicked the middle of the door in. I had left strips of the door alone on all of the sides and had to step over and under two-inch tall metal strips. I needed to hurry. Alarms had probably gone off already, but I had avoided the containment foam traps on the door entry, so that was a plus. I felt- so weird about this. I had a pair of underwear with Armsmaster’s helmet on it.

Okay. Lots of drawers and stuff on the floor; lots of space in my really, really big backpack and the two duffle bags that I had in the backpack. It all worked out. Time to get packing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. it's uh. been a while, hasn't it.


	5. Things Get Wavy- Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taylor loots some stuff and gets the hell out of dodge. And maybe knocks out Armsmaster a bit.

For this heist, I had:

Sticky gloves and boots that were still high heels why. What was life.  
1 backpack  
2 duffle bags  
1 mask  
1 suit that Leet said blocked surveillance through...something sciency and tinker tech. Look, Leet’s tech was weird, okay.  
1 spray can of acid  
1 pair of plastic gloves

They all came in handy for the looting Armsmaster’s workshop. All of the metal doohickeys plugged into the wall I left alone, but everything not nailed down? That was free pickings. The duffle bags and backpack were bulging by the time I was done, and I had a bit of trouble shoving a couple… thingamajigs… in the backpack. 

“Oh, for christsake, just zip!” I finally shouted at the bag and shoved the contents down, probably breaking a few of them, judging by the noise. I froze and waited for footsteps, sensing from both myself and the various bugs around. In hindsight, yelling was not a good decision in a place I was operating a heist in. 

No footsteps came. I let out a breath and decided it was time to be going. Post-haste. I swung the backpack over my shoulders- man, that was heavy- and grabbed the duffle bags. Put my gloves on. Jumped back onto the ceiling and made my way back to the way I came. 

Down this hallway, take a turn, down another hallway. Annnnnd fuck. One of my flies sensed Armsmaster running down the hall I was in, probably headed for the lab I had just looted. This hall didn’t have a convenient beam to hide behind and he was almost here and-

I wasn’t cut out for prison. I swung one of the bags back and forth a couple times, and sort of underhand tossed it while praying to whatever higher power was possibly listening right now- Armsmaster. Sort of crumpled. Oh my god please don’t say I killed him oh my god- “I’m so sorry please don’t kill me oh my god-” I whispered under my breath. 

I dropped down from the ceiling and checked his pulse. It was still there? That didn’t necessarily mean anything he could still be in a coma right now oh my god- okay, Taylor, okay- turn him on his side so if he does vomit he hopefully won’t choke on it man he’s heavy why is tinker armor so hard to move okay. Okay, okay, here we go.

I grabbed the bag that was lying on the floor, and cringed as it made several crunching sounds. That definitely broke something. Jumped up on the ceiling- hey, I was getting better at that- and rushed out another “Sorry!” as he started moving before running away. Very fast. Very, very fast. 

I am now so, so good at crawling upside down in heels you don’t even know, man. Okay, okay, okay, time to scram out of the corridor and down another avoid that camera okay okay down another long hallway, avoid those people, jump down the side of the ship and avoid hitting myself in the face with my bag- the snap of the salt water on my face snapped me out of the panic. I breathed for a moment and rested my head on the metal. My calf muscles were burning. I knew I would be feeling this tomorrow. 

I made my way down to bottom of the ship and jumped into the waiting boat, before it rocketed away. 

I loosened the duffle bags from my grip and dumped the backpack inside the cockpit before making my way to the back and slumping into a seat next to some other grunts. 

I put my mask in my hands and whimpered. “Oh my god,” I whispered as what I had done hit me. “Oh my god, I knocked out Armsmaster. Armsmaster! Oh my god I’m gonna die.” 

One of the grunts tentatively patted me on the back and hovered awkwardly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh. It's been a while.


End file.
